Egypt: President Sisi wins presidential election with 89.6% of votes

It is not surprising that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi was re-elected to a new six-year term. He won the presidential election with 89.6% of the vote, Egypt’s election body said Monday in a country of 106 million people plagued by multiple crises ranging from purchasing power to the war in the neighboring Gaza Strip.

Election body chief Hazem Badawi said turnout reached an “unprecedented” level of 66.8% of Egypt’s 67 million voters. In 2018, the participation rate reached only 41.5%. More than 39 million voters voted for Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has ruled Egypt for ten years. This third term, which takes effect in April, is to be the last under the Egyptian Constitution.

The 69-year-old former marshal was up against three candidates: Hazem Omar, leader of the Republican People’s Party and second in the vote with 4.5% of the vote, Farid Zahran, leader of a small leftist party, and Abdel-Sanad. Yamama is from the Wafd, a party with a centuries-old history but now marginalized.

Sissy, spoiled image

Sissi crushed three of his rivals, but this time his popular base and even foreign support had waned over the years, and his economic management had seen the currency halve in value and debt triple.

As army chief, Sisi led the overthrow of Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, in 2013, and was elected president the following year. Since then, he has silenced liberal and leftist activists, as well as Islamists. Human rights groups say tens of thousands of people have been jailed.

Although the president holds the country with an iron fist, he has failed to bring economic prosperity. Egypt is facing the worst economic crisis in its history, debt has tripled and megastructuring projects often attributed to the army have yet to produce promised revenues. Two thirds of the population live at or just above the poverty line.

Gulf windfall has dried up

Internationally, “most important capitals no longer have confidence in their economic model,” analyzes North Africa and the Middle East researcher Robert Springborg. His predecessors, all military men, with the exception of Mohamed Morsi, were proud of the place of businessmen close to them. According to the expert, he advocates “the militarization of the economy and gigantic loans for prestigious projects with limited economic returns.”

Projects financed, in part, by generous contributions of Gulf dollars, a windfall that has now dried up with states demanding “investment returns” in return. They “no longer believe that the Egyptian government has the political will to change the situation,” explains researcher Hafsa Halawa.